#stonernightcrawler

It’s a cool night. So they walk back to Warren’s apartment where Bobby orders Chinese take out from the restaurant down the street. Bean curd for Warren, and broccoli and beef for Bobby. Usually they’d also order spring rolls, but it was too late at night for Warren’s stomach to handle anything fried. 

Bobby puts the phone down and walks into the bedroom where Warren’s sitting at the boudoir wiping off the mascara and concealer he was wearing. Warren says it’s the only for parties, the make up he wears, but there were occasions where he wore it to class or even to go grocery shopping with Jean and Hank. Despite the cockiness, Bobby knows there’s a little bit of insecurity behind Warren’s mask. 

“I dunno why you always wear this stuff.” Bobby says, picking up a tube of lipstick, “Seems exhausting.” 

He uncaps the golden lipstick tube. It’s a warm red color, somewhat muted. He’s seen Warren wear it before. 

“It’s fun. I like it.” Warren states, before grabbing another cotton ball and wiping his eyes. “You should try it sometime.” 

Bobby eyes the lipstick in his hand. “Don’t think I could pull it off. Plus it’s kind of weird when men wear makeup.” 

It’s half insecurity and half jealousy. 

“Do it. I dare you.” Warren leans onto the wood of the boudoir. “It’s cowardly when someone refuses a dare.” 

Bobby’s still seventeen years old underneath all the muscle and training. He isn’t going to let Warren win this, as silly as it may seem to everyone else. Bobby screws the bottom of the tube and then gives himself a hard look in the mirror. He was going to do this. 

His lips are much thinner than Warren’s. Warren was born with nice full lips, and Bobby took a lot after his father for most of his facial features. He carefully applies lipstick trying his best to stay within the lines with his shaky hands. He doesn’t quite like how it looked at him when he’s done. It looks awkward, like it’s not supposed to be there. 

“I don’t feel any fun.” Bobby says to Warren, returning the lipstick to him. “I feel a lot more ugly though.” 

“The fun part isn’t the lipstick itself, Bob.” Warren caps it, and then places it back into the drawer. “It’s when you kiss someone with it.” 

“Really?” Bobby asks, turning towards Warren. “Wanna prove it?” 

Warren smiles, and nods. They’re friends, and what’s a kiss between two friends?

“Yeah, come here.” He pulls Bobby down by wrapping his arms around his shoulders and gives him a kiss on the lips. Bobby obliges, and returns the kiss. The lipstick is messy and sticky, but Warren’s right, a kiss like that is a lot more enjoyable. Bobby doesn’t know why he likes kissing Warren so much, but he writes it off as the lipstick. 

Part of him wishes Hank would have at least called that he would be late or something. He knows Hank isn’t the type to stand him up, that would literally be impossible considering that their date was taking place in their shared apartment. He pulls off the stems of the strawberries, as if he’s asking them if Hank McCoy really loves him or not. 

It’s childish, Kurt knows that much. But anything to take his mind off of the slight burn of being forgotten. He looks at the tealight that he had underneath the fondue holder and sighed. He really did plan the perfect romantic night only for Hank to get tied up with someone else. 

Kurt had even cleaned and brushed his coat, so that he would be nice and fluffy for the night. But as the hours pull closer and closer to midnight, part of him realizes that nothing would be happening, tonight. He sighs inwardly, and grabs the last strawberry from the box, before hearing the door unlock. 

Much like a cat, Kurt jumps up in his seat. He shoves the strawberry in his mouth before jumping towards the door, opening it up with excitement despite the fact that he is disappointed in Hank. 

“You’re late.” Kurt says, with hand on his hip, demanding an explanation. “Three hours late.”

Hank smiles, and presses a kiss to Kurt’s cheek. “Let me live, will you? I bought you flowers to make up for it.”

He has a bouquet of lilies and roses. And a bottle of plum wine. It makes Kurt smile, but he still tries to play the frustrated husband. 

“Where were you! I ate all the strawberries while you were gone…” Kurt buries his face in Hank’s fur. “I thought you forgot about me!” He plays into the dramatics. Hank doesn’t mind it, and usually encourages it. 

The most common culprits of this were usually Julian and Quentin, and this time it isn’t any different. It started off with a slight disagreement over something that almost any emotionally stable person would have just let go. However, this was Julian and Quentin, who wouldn’t let anything go, ever. 

Julian still has beef with Santos over ruining his nice tie three years ago. And Quentin? Well, he hasn’t forgiven Glob for the time he fed him bugs. 

There is a crowd of people around them, as Julian takes the first punch and launches forwards at Quentin. It lands straight on his shoulder. Quentin doesn’t like this sort of physical fighting but he would endure it, if only to prove a point. He can take Julian down if he just thought hard enough about it. That sounded about right. 

Julian goes in for another punch, as Quentin taunts him. It lands on his stomach with a loud thwack. 

It makes Quentin laugh, and that’s enough to distract Julian. 

“What’s so--” Julian doesn’t get to complete his sentence, because Quentin punches him straight in the nose, where a loud crack echoes through the hall. Quentin cheers only for a moment before Julian lurches forward at him grabbing him by the sweater vest. 

“Bro, that is SO not cool.” He says, his voice nasally, as he is finding it hard to breathe properly. He pulls Quentin closer, and knocks his head against Quentin’s as hard as he can. He’s already broken his nose, he isn’t going to lose this fight too. 

But that is a problem for him to figure out later, as right now he is more concerned with the problem at hand. Josh is crouched on the floor behind Julian, with his legs cramping up. He grabs onto his legs and mumbles a few things, despite the fact that he was a healer, for some reason he couldn’t get his legs to stop cramping. 

“Julian,” Josh half-whines as he presses his head into Julian’s back. “When are we moving, my legs are killing me?” He’s not exactly quiet about it. He was testing Julian’s last nerve, especially with the fact that this was the fourth time he has asked something along  those lines. Julian isn’t known for his patience, and he wouldn’t start now. 

“Would you pipe the fuck down, asshole?” Julian whispers under his breath, hoping that Julian would get the message. “We’re on a stealth mission, it means I need you to be quiet for this to work.”

Josh groans, realizing this was going to be his whole night. He shoves his head into Julian’s back again. “Could you give me a little bit more space if we’re going to be stuck here the entire night?” 

“What is your problem?” Julian snaps, almost yelling, he turns around with an angry frown. “I can’t move, and you’re going to have to deal with this. It’s your fault you didn’t stretch when we were on the Blackbird.” 

“I don’t know why you have such a problem with it Quentin, not all of us were born with genius level intellect or whatever.” Julian responded, and took a sip from his ice-cold water. “Don’t eat like that, you’ll ruin your shirt.” He slapped Quentin’s hand away from the fries and used his telekinesis to give him a fork.

“I know. But the stuff we were doing for that ancient Rome stuff was so basic, how did you not know that?” He begrudgingly took the fork from Julian and continued to eat the fries. “Did Frost not teach you anything?”

Julian leaned back into his seat and then traced the frost on the outside of his cup. “No, The Xavier school was different, at least after the riots you started. We had classes based more on fighting rather than actually studying. And then M-Day happened so,” Julian waved his metallic hand in the air. “You know. We didn’t have enough time to study things like maths and science unless we really needed to.”

“That’s sad.”

“It’s not as sad as much as it circumstances. The Jean Grey school is a much better environment for students.” Julian responded in his matter of fact way. He grabbed one of the tissues next to Quentin with his telekinesis and then wiped Quentin’s face with it. 

He really hated how sloppy Quentin was with his eating habit. He understood it was partially due to the fact that Quentin cared more about the process of eating food rather than how he ate it. Something about needing fuel for his brain or something like that. Julian wasn’t listening when he tried to explain it to him.

“Do you want me to tutor you?” Quentin asked and then slowed down his eating, finally straightening out his back. “Because it seems like you just didn’t know anything, rather than you were being a douche about it. Do you even know how to read?”

That earned him a kick from underneath the table. Julian obviously had a large, but easily bruised ego, and someone like Quentin insulting him wasn’t doing him any favors. Quentin rubbed his leg with the back of his foot, Julian’s kicks hurt when he actually meant them. It didn’t help that he was wearing his boots.

“Why would you waste your time tutoring me?” Julian said, picking at the salad in front of him. It was obvious that Quentin had hit a nerve. “I’m not saying you have better things to do, but I’m just telling you that stuff doesn’t stick with me. Maths and science just aren’t my strong suit. I’d be better off just buying you multiple lunches and having you do my work.”

“I’m graduating next semester. Aren’t you supposed to be graduating too, Keller?” Quentin asked. He wasn’t sure with the way that Julian had phrased his response. Quentin usually didn’t feel bad for people, but man did he feel bad for Julian. Even his salad looked sadder than usual salad looked.

“I don’t know. It’s all up to Pryde.” Julian shrugged. “I might be held back. I know Glob and Benjamin are graduating.”

“Jesus, you’re so depressing when you open up.”

“Says the loneliest man on campus.” Julian said in defense of himself, obviously feeling too vulnerable to continue this conversation. He sat up, and then crossed his arms. “Anyway, we’re totally getting an A on that project.”

“A+, and that’s only because I did all the work. You did nothing but the calligraphy.”

“Yeah, because your handwriting is chickenshit.”